Hear Kansas’ New Live Version of ‘Dust in the Wind': Premiere

After spending more than a year touring to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their classic album Leftoverture, Kansas will commemorate the experience with the release of Leftoverture Live & Beyond, which will arrive on Nov. 3.

You can listen to “Dust in the Wind” from the new collection above. It's an exclusive premiere.

Guitarist and founding member Richard Williams tells Ultimate Classic Rock that the song, which originally appeared on the group’s 1977 album, Point of Know Return, has become such a popular song that “every night, when we start that, that’s one song that there’s no doubt that everybody knows it. It’s not like, “I’ve never heard this song before.’ Everybody knows that song. They know all of the lyrics. Their mother knows it, their grandfather knows it. They have a personal story attached to that song. In any country we’d ever play in, that’s probably more universally known than anything. And that’s cool. Because being acoustic, it’s quieter, you can hear the crowd more.”

Williams recalls one particular show that they played in Sofia, Bulgaria, recently. It was their first time playing there and they had no idea what to expect. The show sold out in 24 hours, and once Kansas got onstage, they got an immediate positive reception. “They sang along the whole night to everything," he says. "But during 'Dust' you could really hear the crowd, and I could hear them singing so loudly that I could actually hear the Bulgarian accent while they sang. There’s just been so many nights like that. And I get to start that event, every night that we play it, wherever it is. I’m the one who counts it out and starts it and from the first note, everybody knows that that is. There’s really nothing like that.”

The upcoming live album was produced by longtime Kansas associate Jeff Glixman, who was behind the boards for the original Leftoverture album. “We just handed it to Jeff, which made sense, because here’s the guy that mixed the album in the first place,” he says.

Kansas are currently in the middle of the final leg of the Leftovertureanniversary tour, which runs through the end of this year. They’ll spend January and February working on a follow-up to 2016’s The Prelude Implicit, which was the first new Kansas studio album in 16 years. They’re planning to release the record next fall -- which will be followed by another world tour, this time focusing on a full-album performance of Point of Know Return.

Leftoverture Live & Beyond is available for pre-order right now on CD and vinyl, and digitally on iTunes and Google Play. Special bundles are available directly from the band.